1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a circuit for detecting individual positions of electrical contactors as well as the application thereof in thrust reverser doors in a turbine engine.
2. Description of the Related Art
The current turbine engines include numerous computers each receiving information coming from sensors such as contactors and interpreting this information so as to determine the actions to be undertaken.
This is, for example, the case of thrust reverser devices commonly used to slow the airplane and assist the braking system so as to reduce the distance necessary for stopping the airplane.
In a known manner, a thrust reverser device includes a plurality of retractable doors that are deployed during braking and closed during other phases of flight. Each door may be equipped with at least three contactors in two states, open or closed, with one contactor being intended to send information on the open position of the door, another contactor being intended to send information on the closed position of the door and the last contactor being intended to provide information on the locking of the door. In addition, for reasons of safety, it is necessary to provide redundancy for each contactor so as to maintain the reliability of information transmitted to the computer.
It is thus understood that, the more the number of contactors is increased, the more the number of inlets and outlets to be interfaced with the computer is increased, producing a greater load for the computer and a large number of connection wires between the computer and the contactors positioned at the thrust reverser doors.
To overcome this problem, the applicant has already proposed, in application EP0638913A1, the production of a circuit comprising contactors with two contact positions arranged in parallel and associated with resistors, so as to reduce the number of inlets and outlets.
However, the solutions proposed have numerous disadvantages. Indeed, in a first case, a defect of a contactor may lead to an incorrect reading of the position of the other contactors. In a second case, it is possible to know the number of open and closed contactors without being capable of specifying their individual position.